Blog for the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at the Australian School of Business (ASB) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).
The CIE inspires innovation and entrepreneurship through its educational programs, competitions, events, and research initiatives.
Just a quick update today that we're looking at the next generation of mentoring opportunities at UNSW. We have two programs in the works: mentoring for coursework, and mentoring for competitions.
For STRE2010 and STRE5607, one semester I manually paired students up with mentors, the next I coached them to network and find their own (see mentoring blog post). This coming session, I’m inclined to do both. Start them off with finding their own, and then invite additional mentors. Students then learn to not sole-source their feedback, and mentors get to know other mentors. As a result, we now have an updated set of Mentor Guidelines.
For the Peter Farrell Cup (update coming soon), where teams compete for prizes, we’re planning on pairing participating teams in the Peter Farrell Cup with mentors.
If you are interested in mentoring teams for coursework, or for the competition, please contact us at cie@unsw.edu.au.
There is a lot of interest in mentoring these days, both from people who want to be mentored and those who want to give back and be mentors. Mentoring isn’t exactly new, though. UNSW’s Chancellor, David Gonski, was mentored by the late Kim Santow in the 70’s. We should be able to learn lessons about mentoring from our past before reinventing the wheel.
Before looking at different types of mentors, let’s take a step back and compare mentoring to coaching. If you think of a coach, you probably get the image of a sports coach, running up and down the side-lines, yelling very specific instructions to the players about where they should be and what they should do, or who they should keep an eye on. Mentoring, on the other hand, isn’t so much about providing specific instructions, as it is about asking the right questions to get the mentee to draw their on conclusion about what course of action is best. For years I volunteered with the NVBC, and co-mentored start-ups in the competition alongside Peter Parrish. Back then there was not much structure to the program other than us asking the entrepreneurs a million questions and getting them to think about what they would say to judges in the competition who might ask the same questions. These days, the NVBC mentoring program is complemented by a very structured mentoring program, operated by the regional innovation council (NVBC's title sponsor), for which Peter is now training to be a “lead mentor”.
Even though some people prefer being part of a structured program and being assigned mentors, the reality is that you (yes, you) can go out and find your own mentors, too. Having one mentor doesn’t mean you can’t have another. You don’t even need to let the person know you consider them your mentor. David Lerner’s blog has an interesting post describing varying degrees of formality to mentorship, from free and informal, through to very structured for-fee programs. Another excellent source for what it means to have or be a mentor is Nature’s guide for mentors, which even includes a self-assessment tool, to see how good a mentor you are.
This past semester, I created the opportunity for 15 teams of 5-6 students to be mentored for their business idea as part of a course I teach, STRE2010. Part way through the course, students created short youtube clips of their business pitches (e.g. Detect to Protect, much like the recent TED talk on concussions), which I then sent out to about 30 entrepreneurs who had previously expressed interest in mentoring. Within a few short days (over a weekend!), mentors had signed up to all of the teams. Teams were mentored for another 5-6 weeks through to the final pitch, done in front of a live panel of judges, consisting of entrepreneurs and investors. The feedback from the mentoring program was great. Both students and mentors really enjoyed the opportunity and engagement.
This term, we are tweaking the mentoring program and probably increasing it, due to the fantastic uptake of the revised Diploma in Innovation Management and increased enrolment in my course. Rather than pairing teams up with mentors, we will get teams to find their own mentors. This will help students learn to step outside their comfort zone, network, and pitch their business ideas to real people outside the classroom. We will of course have our own list of people we miiiiiiiight be able to put them in touch with if they really are stuggling to find mentors on their own (please let us know if you want to be added to our list). And, there are also related organizations like TiE Sydney, through which students may find mentors. (SME mentors may be found through Enterprise Connect's ELM program)
That’s all for now. Don’t forget to read our recent B-HERT article on teaching innovation and entrepreneurship in high-school, subscribe to our news and events, and follow us on Twitter.
Dr. Martin Bliemel
Director, Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
School of Strategy & Entrepreneurship
Australian School of Business, UNSW
The twitter-sphere has been lit up with announcements from StartMate that they are now open for applications. But, what is StartMate?
Startmate is a group of startup executives offering mentorship and seed financing to founders of Internet and Software businesses based in Australia. Our first program is in the first quarter of 2011 in Sydney and applications will open later this year.
We want to help the most exceptional technically-focused founders create world class companies that solve customer problems.
The three month program offers a $25,000 investment, mentorship from more than 20 successful founders, sage legal counsel and a two week trip to Silicon Valley. At the conclusion of the program there are two demo days, one in Sydney and one in Silicon Valley, where you present in front of early stage investors.
We strongly believe in lean startup principles. The biggest risk in a startup is not whether someone will steal your idea or if you can build a product but rather that no one will care. Startmate is designed to help you win your first customers and work through the initial stages of customer discovery.
I have met a number of the mentors, and indeed, their names should be familiar with you, too. They have an exceptional depth and breadth of experiences related to high-tech web start-ups. Like me, some still occasionally get mistaken for uni students. They may not have grey hair, but that doesn't seem to matter in the GenY business world. They also have a huge heart for the younger entrepreneurs who may not even realize the global social impact their innovations may have.
Over the last couple weeks, the Sydney new ventures community has been on fire with events, including Tech23, the Young Entrepreneurs' Unconvention, SydStart, and Startup Camp Sydney (See also SMH article or ASB media release). Tonight is Seed Accelerator's Startup Networking Party, and CIE's Peter Farrell Cup is still coming up, too! A common element between these events were that there was always someone from StartMate there. The next wave of innovators are revving up, and the angels/mentors are now ready for business (from an email from Niki):
Applications will close at the end of November and the final round interviews will be held in early December.
Startmate is premised on helping small teams of technical founders get started on building great companies. More details on the program here: http://www.startmate.com.au/program-details The first wave of StartMate will begin in January of 2011 in Sydney.
